Unrequited
by letschangetheworld
Summary: Never let something temporary affect you permanently. Theresa considers the options, considers the circumstances, considers everything.


Thank god I've finally gotten something out. Let me tell you, I have been witnessing the worst batch of writer's block EVER. Seriously, so bad. But this is a product of the writer's block, I've been attempting a quality plot-driven story but waaah. We'll see.

Nothing is mine, yada yada yada. Spoilers from finale, I guess. Written in second person, too with language.

* * *

The _incident_. That's what you call it.

Your moment of weakness, the one time in your life where everything was confusing and nothing meant sense and you truly weren't yourself. Taken over by the parasitic part of your stretched-too-much mind.

If you stopped everything and dwelled too much on what happened, the chilling thought of your friend's deaths (and more importantly Jay's death) would infiltrate your dreams, your daily thoughts.

Days after the incident, you find yourself staring out into space, wondering whether or not the familiar feeling of helplessness would overcome you and you would succumb to her own mind again.

But it couldn't - no, _wouldn't _- happen.

You are stronger than that now, stronger than you were before. You understand now that you have been living your lives ever since the beginning, it just hadn't been so clear to you. This was just a part of your - their - everybody's life.

All seven of you are normal; it was just outside of the normalcy the world asked more. You still went to school, had tests, forgot about homework, slept in on weekends, occasionally watched a cartoon, flirted and fell in love. All the things a teenage girl would be going through even if you weren't battling a God.

You sort of wish time would stop, pause, take a deep breath, exhale, think over some shit and then carry on.

Every time he looks at you, you hold your breath and wish the world would too so that it's just you and him, you and him and you're heart is _beatbeat_ing in your chest and then it's gone. Simply gone.

"Are you okay?"

Atlanta's voice is a beacon that draws you back to the real world where instead of nestled up in a corner with Jay, you're sitting at a table in the cafeteria of your school, a week away from the end of eleventh grade and five minutes away from getting your ass kicked if you don't finish the chemistry homework that is staring a hole through your forehead.

"Yeah, sorry, I zoned out," you answer vaguely, pretty sure Atlanta now automatically thinks you're slipping into that world again. It seems to be a growing trend whenever one of the other six finds you daydreaming.

You were right; the other girl raises an eyebrow at you and you're very tempted to rip it right off. "I'm fine," you repeat, smiling confidently because you are confident; you _are_ fine, you are.

"If you're sure," Atlanta begins, even though the both of you both know that you are indeed very sure. "We have practice at 3:30, if the weather lets up. I'll see you later." She rises from her chair with a wink and disappears off (mostly likely to find Archie, you conclude).

Seventy odd minutes later, you find yourself standing in the middle of the pitch, staring up at the very nearly black sky, threatening and yet rather alluring at the same time. You've always held a strange fascination for storms.

While momentarily thinking on that, it draws you back to the hellish storm you were yourself days ago. The thought doesn't last very long, though, because the sky slowly starts to open up, rain pouring from the depths of the clouds.

The rest of the team groans around you, complaining about the weather and their awful luck (even though your team has done remarkably well this season) but you don't mind, really. You weren't looking forward to Atlanta's iron fist practice anyways.

"C'mon, let's head back to the dorm," she calls to you from the bench, holding her hooded zip up over her head in some sort of attempt to remain dry.

You make the leisurely journey over to her, soaked to your bone and join her in returning to the school. Thank heavens you put up the roof on your car or the gloomy weather would be nothing compared to the mood you'd be in then.

The boys are, predictably, battling over some sort of galactic world in the forms of spaceships. Herry and Archie are both sitting cross-legged on the carpet (far too close to the television and you humorously find yourself worrying for their eyesight) and Odie is perched on the arm of the couch that Neil is sprawled ceremoniously across.

Your immediately note Jay sitting in the armchair in front you and he leans his head back against it to look at you upside down.

"Hey. Caught in the rain, huh?"

He does not direct the question at you, because that would be unheard of, instead aiming it at Atlanta who is itching to join the intergalactic fight for freedom.

But nerve and determination – how dare he, how _dare_ he – wells up inside of you, bubbling to the top and causing you to brusquely reply, "That's what it looks like, doesn't it?"

Suddenly blowing the enemy's mother-ship up isn't the most interesting thing to pay attention to. You can feel five sets of eyes on you (whether they are concerned, baffled, amused, who knows) and turn on your heel abruptly, leaving the room and climbing the stairs two-by-two.

You can decide whether you're just being daft or just a pain in the ass. You're sure it's the latter one because Archie never fails to remind you of it.

"Stupid boys, stupid hormones, stupid, stupid, stupid…"

Rambling is your heroin, rambling to _yourself_ is your own medicine. You march right past your room, not intent on burrowing yourself in your blankets (your _pity_) tonight because it's raining outside and after all, you love storms.

The wind has picked up, you note with a distinct air of irrelevance. It could pick you up off the rooftop and carry you away into the darkness, for all you care.

Maybe they'd be better off without you. Perhaps, just possibly, they're waiting for you to give up again so you're out of their hair for good. Persephone acts differently around you now, differently in a bad way, eyeing you and summing you up and a little tenser in the shoulders like she's preparing herself for a sudden outburst.

They whisper and are dreadful at trying to hide it. It was just two mornings ago, exactly a week after the incident, where you walked in on Archie and Atlanta openly remarking on your distant, aloof aura.

"You think she even realizes how close she came to – "

"– to finishing us, Zeus, Cronus, off?"

You do realize, you do grasp the fact that you were a monster, plain and simple, and that you very easily could have destroyed the most important things in your life (excluding Cronus, natch).

What _they_ don't realize is that it's taking quite a toll on you to constantly _know_ those things, _think_ about those things.

The storm is at its peak, reminding you of when you were at your own peak during _the incident_. You imagine the swirling of the wind like it was when it surrounded you as you lifted off the ground. Your eyes close and suddenly you're back there, looking down at Jay's desperate face, your heart _physically hurting_ and your resolve cracking.

"Theresa?"

You've returned, the clouds are above you and you're being drenched again but his voice is clear throughout it all, a flare in the fog.

But this is Jay and he doesn't care about you, he probably wants you gone just as much as the rest of them seem to want. Again, you're fizzy with resentment.

"Go away," you retort angrily, unsure whether he heard you because he comes to your side.

His gaze is relaxed, normal and you hate yourself for glancing at him. "Normal people do not stand in the cold rain in the middle of a storm like this."

"Oh? I'm normal?" The response is bitter, tangy and you swear you see him flinch. Your current mood is clear to him now.

"It's been nine days."

"Seems like nine years."

Jay is successfully soaked and you hide the fact that you _want_ him to go back in, to enjoy his Friday night with his friends. "Look, whatever the fuck is bothering you, it'd be really nice if you'd either just bottle it up and not show it or quit ignoring the people who care about you and open up for once."

You are deeply offended and you glare with all that you've got, but the fact that he's entirely accurate is troubling you.

"Who do you think you are, Jay?" you ask through the curtain of rain. "My boyfriend? Because I don't know if you remember correctly, or maybe your memory is failing you, but you seemed to bring me back to life and then kissed me! Twice! And since then, there's been nothing. No comforting Theresa when it should be very clear what she's thinking."

Your hair is blowing around and his eyes are slightly wider, but you press on, full steam ahead, not having a clue where this is going or where you want this to go. You are well aware of the fact you might not be making perfect sense.

"I'm a danger; I'm a danger to the team and the Gods and more importantly you. Don't you see? I don't belong here anymore, I've risked everything I've ever loved and cared about! You could have died! I'm a basket case because I've been pushed too far and I think you and I both know it'd be better if I just… just wasn't here anymore."

You voice what you have been thinking about for a while now, "I should leave."

Jay stares hard at you, his eyes still wide and the drops of rain falling from his fingertips, his hair, his nose, his chin. Fuck, you want to jump off the roof just so you can escape his intoxicating air. "You… you think you don't _belong_ here anymore?"

Raindrops, tears, it's all the same now. "I'm different to everybody now."

"Changed. You've changed."

"Thanks, that makes me feel much better."

"You are a part of this team, Theresa," Jay points out, indicating downwards where the rest of the so called 'team' is nestled up in the living room floors below you. "I don't give a damn what happened a week and a half ago, it happened and we're moving on and adjusting and you have to realize that when you were like that - " he cringes, " - you scared the hell out of all of us. More importantly _me_."

"I'm an outcast!"

"You're not!" Jay challenges, advancing forward a step so that he can grasp your upper arms tightly, holding you still. "You're Theresa and you are one of the Greek descendents that is going to take down everything you encounter, _together_ with the rest of us."

You dimly become conscious of the fact that he has released your arms and his resting one large, calloused hand on your wet, flushed cheek. "You are Theresa. You fell victim to something that nobody, not even you, could predict and nobody, I repeat nobody, is holding that against you."

The rain is heavy against your shoulders now, beating down on the top of your head, but for a few seconds the only thing you feel is the warmth his lips bring to your forehead when he presses them there.

You melt, you can't help it. Your arms come around his waist snugly and your face finds wetness when you squash it against his shirt. He breathes in you, strokes your back, and holds you steady against him.

When he kisses you keenly on the lips, you think its ecstasy, just like when he kissed you in the water. It's bliss.

A flicker of hope, you think. Maybe instead of leaving, you just needed to come back fully, return to who you were.

Perhaps it just took a swearing Jay and a heady kiss and a curtain of steady rain to show you that the moment of weakness, the incident…

It wasn't your fault.


End file.
